There might come a time (though I seriously doubt it) when I’m no longer treated like a “guest” when I hang out with my Tibetan friends. Maybe too there will be a point in our relationship when my friends stop handing me plates of Tibetan food and insisting I eat, as if I’m about to wither and blow away from lack of nourishment. I’m not holding my breath that this will happen either.
There just seems to be something basic, perhaps innate, and certainly wonderful in their culture that leads Tibetans to show warmth and generosity toward those around them, and that they also share what they have with others. One of my Tibetan friends who grew up in a refugee settlement in India once told me that when he and his brother were young, they had very little to eat and often were hungry. My friend remembers that if one brother did a job for someone and earned an orange, he would share it with the other. I guess there are life lessons that a child learns under those circumstances that stick with one long into adulthood.
Anyway, the Tibetan New Year holiday, Losar, will be celebrated next weekend, and my friends gathered yesterday for a party, a kind of pre-Losar warm-up. The children practiced a play they will perform next weekend, and adults and children worked together making khapse, a Tibetan cookie. My contribution, as always, was to take pictures...but also to eat all the food that my dear friends so generously shared with me.
